yeah, give it a month total in primary and see where it's at, and take a sip of your sample thinking about the over all balance of alcohol to sweetness and body when you do. It'll be pretty hot, because it will be young, but you should be able to get a sense of it.

Some times the big beers will go slowly for the last few weeks, but they will fall. And an F.G. in the low 20's or high teens wouldn't be inappropriate for something like this. Probably anything below 1.022 would be fine. (Don't forget to calibrate you hydrometer by checking in your brew water and to adjust for temp! )

I would want to make sure that the fermentation is complete before transferring it. You can leave it in the primary for months if need be with no ill effects, but a big beer like this can stand quite a bit of bulk aging, which will mellow out any hot alcohol burn you might taste. So with this one I could see transferring to another vessel to bulk age and free up your fermentor.

As for the champagne yeast, if it has gotten to 1.027 in 2 weeks-ish, I bet it will go the rest of the way on it's own. I recently learned that champagne yeasts can consume sugars that ale yeasts cannot. So they could really dry out your beer, leaving it very thin and hot. I would only use them to cure a cloyingly sweet beer that was truly stuck.

It sounds like the distributor was trying to make it fool proof by including the extra yeast, on the cheap. The way to do it would have been to use a starter, or multiple vials/packs of liquid yeast(expensive). A dry ale yeast would have had more yeast cells to start with, so you wouldn't have had to use a starer, but there are more strains of liquid yeasts available and you will find they all will contribute unique flavors which can really make a beer

It's the other way around actually. Beer yeasts can ferment larger sugars than wine (including champagne) yeast.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yooper

I wouldn't add EC-1118 at bottling. I'd add it before that. The reason is that if it isn't killed by the alcohol content, it'll ferment some sugars that ale yeast normally won't. So, you may have bottle bombs if you wait until bottling to add it. I'd add it in secondary, late, with a starter, and cross my fingers. But I feel that wouldn't be as easy and as dependable as simply carbing it up in a keg and bottling from the keg.

Really???

dunno, I'm a noob, but I'm going with Yooper on this one. Edit: Unless you have some references you can share.

If the you or the OP wants to try it, I say go for it and let us know how it goes.

My guess is that the Champagne yeast is actually included for bottling, not secondary fermentation. Such a big beer is likely to have tired yeasties by the end of it, so you rehydrate the Champagne yeast into the bottling bucket with your priming sugar, rack on top of it, and have fresh yeast that'll eat the priming sugar at bottling time.

My understanding is that the Champagne yeas is mainly good at devouring simple sugars in a high ABV environment, so hopefully you wouldn't have bottle bombs as long as your Primary finished eating up as much Maltose as possible.

My guess is that the Champagne yeast is actually included for bottling, not secondary fermentation. Such a big beer is likely to have tired yeasties by the end of it, so you rehydrate the Champagne yeast into the bottling bucket with your priming sugar, rack on top of it, and have fresh yeast that'll eat the priming sugar at bottling time.

My understanding is that the Champagne yeas is mainly good at devouring simple sugars in a high ABV environment, so hopefully you wouldn't have bottle bombs as long as your Primary finished eating up as much Maltose as possible.

+1 I'd use the Champagne yeast for bottling, just add it to the bottling bucket after you start to rack your beer on to the priming sugar. This ensures that your beer carbs up fairly quickly. The Champagne/Wine yeasts usually ferment simple sugars for the most part (Sucrose/Dextrose), not the more complex ones (Maltose) that Beer yeasts target.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Revvy

And I'd like to see my 1.080 beers ready from grain to glass in a week, and served to me by red-headed twin penthouse pets wearing garter belts and fishnet stockings, with Irish accents, calling me "master luv gun," but we can't always get what we want can we? :)

I have this recipe fermenting in a primary in a second fridge i have. I cant get the temps up to 68 and have it sitting at around 62ish because the temp controller i ordered has not arrived yet. Is that too cold for this yeast? The wort was more like a slurry when it was all said and done. I only had to add about 1 gallon of water to bring it up to the 5gal. A little insight would be much appreciated!

Using 0099 is tricky sometimes, see the below directly from White Labs. I think you certainly need to warm it up a bit.

WLP099 Super High Gravity Ale Yeast
Can ferment up to 25% alcohol. From England. Produces ester character that increases with increasing gravity. Malt character dominates at lower gravities.
Attenuation: >80%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Fermentation Temperature: 65-69°F
Alcohol Tolerance: Very High

Notice to brewers: This can be a difficult-to-use strain and we recommend the following::
1. Needs heavy aeration.
a. Aerate very heavily, 4 times as much as with a normal gravity beer. Less oxygen dissolves into solution at high gravity. Aerate intermittently during first 5 days of fermentation (30sec-1min).
2. Needs nutrients
3. To obtain higher ABVs (16% +)
a. Pitch 3-4 times as much yeast.
b. Add 2 times the normal nutrient level
c. Begin Fermentation with wort that would produce a lower alcohol beer (6-8%) and then add wort each day for the first 5 days (wort can be concentrated at this point).

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Revvy

And I'd like to see my 1.080 beers ready from grain to glass in a week, and served to me by red-headed twin penthouse pets wearing garter belts and fishnet stockings, with Irish accents, calling me "master luv gun," but we can't always get what we want can we? :)